It is known to protect an electric circuit arrangement against faults or even destruction by providing for the detection of a short circuit and disabling the entire circuit promptly in the event of a short circuit of the electric load. One possibility of such a protection provides that the enabled state of the circuit is only an unstable operating condition. This unstable condition returns, in the event of a short circuit or some other fault of the circuit, immediately to its stable condition, which is the disabled state of the entire circuit. In such a circuit configuration, the electric load is applied to the supply voltage and switched on and off with respect to ground. Particularly in the development and test phase of such a circuit, this has the substantial disadvantage that unwanted short circuits of the load with respect to ground may cause faults or even destruction. Also, the known circuit arrangements are very complex and therefore costly.